


Adam Parrish Is A Free Elf

by gansey_is_our_king



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam losing his shit over Ronan in a suit, Angst?, Blue Lily Lily Blue Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Friendship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Ronan is bad at feelings, Ronan losing his shit over Adam, So is Adam tbh, as usual, because I am a cruel human being, heaps of sexual tension, i guess?, missing moment, pre-trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8782327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: What happened immediately after the court case in Blue Lily, Lily Blue?  Gansey tries to go all Richard-Campbell-Gansey-III on his friends.  Adam loses is shit over Ronan Lynch in a suit just because.  Adam and Ronan scream internally about each other.  So what else is new?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the title. This is actually pretty angsty, but the Potterhead in me refused to let the Dobby reference go.

Adam was numb. He was numb—but he was _free_.

His black dress shoes thudded on the old wooden boards underneath him as he walked toward the courtroom door. His hands were all sweat and heat in his pockets. There was Ronan. He reached up to jerk his tie loose around his throat as Adam approached and there was a snarl on his lips that did not quite extend to his eyes.

  
His eyes whispered: _are you okay?_

  
His white knuckles demanded: _this is not fair!_

  
Gansey stepped between them before Adam could come up with a verbal reply.

  
“What now?” he said. He tried to say this in his best Richard Campbell Gansey The Third voice. All crisp politeness and control. But his tone slipped a little when he looked at Adam.

  
The pity that clouded his expression made Adam want to scream.  He nodded at the double doors to the hall.

  
“I want to leave.”

  
“Okay then.” Gansey turned to look at Ronan. “Lynch?”

  
Adam was not sure what Gansey needed. It was quite possible that he only wanted to check that Ronan had his emotions under control before he made his next move, which seemed utterly ridiculous to Adam.

  
Ronan never had his emotions under control.

  
Now he crashed his shoulder to the door and it burst open. Gansey and Adam paused a moment and then hurried after him. Adam could feel his heart where it was stuck in his throat as he followed Ronan down the wide hall to the entrance. His shoes made a different noise on the tile, and he tried to match his shallow breathes to the neat smack-smack-smack that echoed all around the brick walls.

  
Cabeswater whispered in his other ear. Silky leaves hissed together in a slow a breeze and water trickled down a stream that Adam could not see.

  
He took a deep breath.

  
He was free.

  
He allowed Ronan to lead the way out the main double doors and toward the lot where he had parked his battered car earlier. The Camaro sat in the spot beside it. The chipped orange paint was so brilliant and violent in the sun that it hurt Adam to look at it. 

He let his eyes slip almost shut as he walked. Loose stones and dead leaves crunched underneath his shoes.

  
He was free.

  
Ronan reached the cars first and ripped his tie over his head at once. He tossed it down on the slightly dented hood of the Camaro, and then slumped beside it with his elbows braced on the hot metal and his mouth twisted into something cruel.

  
“Fuck.” He said it loud and harsh. His voice echoed around the quiet lot.

  
Adam took out his car keys.

  
He knew he should probably say thank you.  That he should say _something_.  But he was not quite sure that he could say any words out loud at the moment. His mouth was so dry. His hands shook as he unlocked the driver side door and heaved it open.

  
Gansey paused and knocked his knuckles absently on the cracked windshield.

  
“Do you have class?” he said.

  
Adam swallowed. He shook his head. “Not this afternoon.”

  
Gansey looked at Ronan.

  
Ronan looked at the cement between his shoes.

  
He had popped open the top two buttons on his crisp white shirt in silent defiance, even as the tails were still tucked in. He looked about half as messy as usual, and twice as righteously furious. There was no Chainsaw on his shoulder, and when Adam looked at him it was odd. She was such a permanent fixture that it was almost like Ronan had removed his arm instead.

  
Gansey still loitered beside between Adam and the Camaro.  He looked anxious.  
Adam watched as he reached up to rub his thumb across his lip.

  
Finally Gansey said, “Listen. Adam. I know this was impromptu and all—but would you rather come back to Monmouth with us now? I can call Child and tell him what happened here. He let Ronan and I leave school earlier for the hearing. I think he would probably let us all off for the rest of the afternoon if I explain.”

  
Adam tried not to think too much about the way his stomach lurched.

  
He did not want Gansey to pity him.  He did not really think that this _was_ pity.

  
He shook his head anyway.

  
“No. Thanks.”

  
Gansey let out his breath. Then he squinted like he could not quite see Adam where he stood. He opened his mouth, but before he could add another comment Ronan cut in and his voice was as harsh and vicious as it had ever been.

  
“I can stay with him.”

  
Adam scowled at them both. “No. I can be alone. I want to be alone.”

  
Ronan raised one eyebrow in his direction. Even that was a violent gesture. “Parrish. _Come on_.”

  
“Lynch. I have to—”

  
Adam was spared a bad excuse when Ronan snatched his tie up and wrenched open the passenger side door to his rusted old Hondayota. He slid inside and then rolled down the window to prop his elbow on the sill.

  
“Come on. Get in. I hate this place.”

  
His smirk was terrible and handsome, because he was terrible and handsome.

  
Adam climbed into the car. He could see Gansey through the cracked windshield, standing there with his thumb still pressed above his mouth and his forehead wrinkled in appropriate concern.

  
Ronan saluted him. “Dick. See yah later.”

  
Gansey shook his head a little. His own smile was rueful. “Ronan—” he started. But then stopped and let his hand drop down to his side. He watched as Adam backed the car out and pulled away.

  
Ronan dropped his tie onto the broad dashboard. “Where to next?” he said. He still had one elbow hook out the window, and he reached over to brace his hand on the side mirror. Adam watched the muscles in his pale wrist flex above his sleeve. Then he remembered that he was on the road and behind the wheel of a moving car, and quickly turned his attention back to the blank stretch of concrete ahead.

  
Heat shimmered above the broken cement. The car clunked and creaked and moaned.

  
Adam wiped his hand across his damp neck. “I have to put on another shirt.”

  
“So the church, then?” Ronan clarified.

  
“Yeah. The church.”

  
Adam drove the next few blocks in silence, and pulled across the road to park in his usual space behind the chapel. Ronan climbed out when he did, and trailed behind Adam as he went in through the side door beside the office and up the creaky wooden stairs to where his cramped apartment waited on the second floor landing.

  
Adam unlocked the door.  “Want to come in?” he said.

  
It was just an excuse to break the silence. He already knew that Ronan would come inside, otherwise he would not have bothered to follow Adam up here at all. He pushed open the door and took three quick steps in to the apartment and then ducked to avoid the slanted beams above his head. He waited until Ronan had slipped past him before he pushed the door shut behind them both.

  
Ronan sat on his mattress.

  
It was not a proper bed, but Adam did not care because it was still his.

  
He searched in several cardboard boxes, and then pulled a clean shirt on over his head. He kicked his dress shoes underneath his desk. He tossed his white button up over the back of his desk chair and then sat down in it with a quiet moan.

  
Ronan tilted his head up at the noise. He had avoided looking at Adam as he changed, but now his eyes were sharp and alert and his expression was cautious. It was not an expression that Adam associated much with someone like Ronan.

  
Before he could stop himself, he found his eyes darting down to Ronan's mouth.

  
“Are you mad?” he said.

  
It was a pointless question. He already knew that Ronan was mad.

  
But perhaps _mad_ was not the correct word. His head swam with memories that were all Robert Parrish and hard fists on flesh and a voice that hissed insults low and cruel in his ear.

  
_Pathetic. Stupid. Useless._

No.

Adam could not think about that now. He would not think about that now.

  
He was free. He was free. He was free.

  
“What about you, Parrish? Are  _you_ mad?” Ronan countered. It was a neat way to avoid a real answer, and Adam let it happen because that was so much easier than the alternative. He did not want to shout at Ronan now. He did not want to think at all.

He leaned back in his chair. It creaked.

  
He put a hand over his eyes and watched the darkness flicker behind his lids.

  
The mattress protested as Ronan stood up. Adam heard him pad across the apartment and pause next to the desk. Next to the creaky chair and Adam. Ronan breathed in and out. Each inhale was a low hum and each exhale was a quiet rush. Adam tried to match his own breathes to the same time.

  
Ronan did not move.

  
He must have been quite close. Adam could sense him, or perhaps it was really Cabeswater that sensed Ronan and transferred this information back to Adam where he sat slumped in his chair with one hand held over his tired eyes.

  
“Parrish?” Ronan said finally.

  
He _was_ close. Adam twitched a little.

  
“What?” he said. Eyes still shut. Hand still draped across his paper lids.

  
“He deserved more than that!" Ronan exploded suddenly.  "What did he get?  A fine and fucking probation?  He should have gone to jail!" 

  
Here was the reaction that Adam had expected in the lot outside the courthouse.

  
Here was the reaction that Gansey had feared when he stood inside the courtroom.

  
Here was the real Ronan Lynch.

  
Adam opened his eyes. “I know you think that.”

  
His accent slipped out with his vowels. He was so tired.

  
Ronan sneered down at him, where he stood slotted between Adam and the rickety old desk. There was not that much room. His hands were fists. The knuckles burned white. Adam watched a vein pulse in his pale neck.

  
He took a deep breath. “I know you think that," he said again. "But all I needed was someone to say that it was real.”

  
“The fuck? Yeah, Parrish—of course it was real!” Ronan snapped. His eyes were coals surrounded in hot blue fire. “Did you think that you made it all up in your head or whatever? Did you think that you could make this shit up?”

  
He pointed at Adam. At his deaf ear.

  
Adam reached up and touched it automatically.

  
“I already knew that it was real. But when someone else said that he hit me—”

  
He had to stop. His face was hot. His eyes were hot.

  
He would not cry like this.

  
Not with Ronan there.

  
“Fuck!” Ronan snarled.

  
Adam did not think that the curse was directed at him.

  
He stood up, and Ronan took a step back to leave him more space. Adam almost wished that he had not moved at all. He almost wanted to lean over and rest his head on one broad shoulder. Turn his head to the side so that his lips and the hooked black tattoo were inches apart.

  
Then the real world crashed back in and he remembered who he was.

  
Adam Parrish. Free Adam Parrish.

  
He could not lean over that close to Ronan. He could not do that to Ronan.

  
He was tired—that was all.

  
Ronan retreated to the bed then, almost like he had sensed what Adam had been thinking about a moment earlier. The mattress moaned as he stretched out on his back with his arms up above his head and his boots over the side.

  
“Fuck him.”

  
“Ronan..."

  
“Come the fuck on, Parrish. You deserve better than that.”

  
“I—” Adam hesitated.

  
Did he deserve better? Did he actually deserve more?

  
He already had his freedom, and really, what else was there to have?

  
“Ronan.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Stop.”

  
Ronan shot him a dark scowl to demonstrate his disapproval. But he stopped.

  
Adam went and sat down on the mattress beside him.

  
Their hips bumped when he did, and then Adam had to slide over a little bit on the wrinkled sheets to leave more space between them. Ronan stared hard at his knees. His suit was more rumpled now, but it was still functional and Adam had to admire the way the seams stretched across his sloped shoulders. His wicked tattoo poked out above the loose shirt collar and his neck was a pale curve next to the dark ink.

  
The most incredible part about Ronan Lynch was that he looked so extraordinarily magical and _other_ even when he was acting completely ordinary.

  
Now his hands were braced on his knees.

  
Now there was a crease between his eyebrows as he continued to scowl—but it had become tentative and careful. It was more like a habit than any real frustration.

  
Adam reached out and touched his elbow, just once and only for a second, his calloused fingertips skating over the silky fabric of his suit.

  
“Thanks,” he said softly. “For today.”

  
He was not quite sure what he meant by that. Was he more thankful that Ronan had come to the courthouse with Gansey that afternoon, or that he had come back here to the apartment with Adam after it was all over?

  
It was possible that both were equal.

  
He already knew that both were equal.

  
Ronan flicked his blue eyes up to Adam. Then he reached over and brushed his knuckles across his cheek in such a careful way that Adam could not quite believe it had really happened. He heard his own breath catch in his chest. His heart skipped where it was trapped behind his ribs, the beat quick and nervous.

  
Ronan Lynch was _not_ careful.

  
Ronan Lynch was blue fire and techno music that blasted inside his heart and a car that raced a hundred miles an hour down an open street.

  
Ronan Lynch was something magical. He was _something more_.

  
Adam Parrish was just something.

  
He stared at Ronan and his pulse pounded inside his blood.

  
Ronan stared back. He stared and stared and stared at Adam.

  
Then he turned away. “I still think it should have been more than a fine.”

  
Adam smiled a little bit. “I know you think that.”

  
He bumped their shoulders and then Ronan did it back.

  
“Loser.”

  
“Is that the best you can do?” Adam teased.

  
“Fuck you. Asshole.”

  
Their shoulders brushed one more time. Slower. Careful.

  
Ronan Lynch was not careful. Except that he was.

  
Adam smiled some more. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts, any comment will absolutely make my day! You can also find me on tumblr at alliwannadoiswrite where I repost everything Raven Cycle-ish and occasionally obsess over the weight of life's problems.


End file.
